Sibel Edmonds’ partial testimony via liveblogging (updated)

“has been able to say “everything that she hasn’t been able to say so far, implicating many member of Congress in a criminal conspiracy,” according to interviews with Fein and others.”

and:

“Edmonds told me in a brief phone conversation during the break: “Bruce Fein is raising objections to everything”, though that’s to be expected. She said she’s been asked, and has answered, questions on Dan Burton (R-IN), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), and other questions on those high-ranking officials and lobbyists in her “State Secrets Gallery”.”

Update from Brad:

Another break…Edmonds still being questioned under direct. Fein believes his questioning cross-examination will last two hours or so once he begins. They are now breaking for lunch. DoJ/FBI still did not show up.

The deposition is being videotaped and Edmonds hopes that it can be released as soon as possible after the deposition, though there has been some objections about releasing the video tape…

Spoke to Edmonds, who says she’s “tired, gotta put some sugar into her system”, but that she’s satisfied with what’s being put on the record so far. “Things we have never discussed outside before”.

A lengthy conversation then, with Krikorian, may give you some idea of what she’s referring to.

Here’s Krikorian, directly quoted. Hang on to your seats…

“From my opinion, if I’m some of the current members of Congress, I’d be very very worried about the information that’s going to come out of this. There are current members of Congress that she has implicated in bribery, espionage. It’s not good. It’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy. For people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it, in my opinion, it’s negligence.

(Which current members have been implicated?)

(Dan) Burton (R-IN), described as basically accepting bribes and involved in espionage for the Turkish government…she could not discuss the extremely illegal activities that Mr. Burton committed against U.S. interests, as she put it.

Also, a current female Democratic [ed note: I misheard, he later said he didn’t know if she was Dem or Rep] member of Congress who has been blackmailed by the Turkish Government…called a ‘hooking exercise’…she’s apparently bi-sexual and they bugged her apartment, she’s married with children, and they set up a relationship with another female who went in and had sexual relationships with her. And they had all the episodes bugged within this current Representatives home and they blackmailed her. … She wouldn’t give her name, but her photograph [is the one with the question mark on it in the “Sibel Edmonds Rogue Gallery”] .

The context of the discussion was that this particular Representative was amenable to passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution. And then based on this ‘hooking’ operation, changed her position. She was reluctant to put this person’s name on record.

[CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION FROM EDMONDS, 4:26pm PT (7:26pm ET): After reviewing our coverage, Edmonds clarifies that she did not discuss the specific voting record of the Congresswoman in question discussed above, because she didn’t, and still doesn’t, know her record on that particular issue. As Krikorian’s quote above may have been inadvertently misleading on that point, she wanted to correct that record. – BF]

(Other people implicated included) Livingston (R-TX), Hastert (R-IL), Dick Gephardt (D-MO), other non-Congressional members, people like Brent Scowcroft, other appointed members of the U.S. government…

(More shortly…)

Sibel actually mentioned this congresswoman in her recent interview with Russ Tice. I have been working on a database to shorten the list but haven’t finished it yet, specifically, a congresswoman who is currently serving, who also served at some point between 1996 and 2002.

More from Brad, quoting Krikorian:

One of the reasons we sought her testimony is especially for these reasons. I can tell you that counsel for Schmidt has been objecting to much of the testimony. I stopped counting the number of objections that were raised. But, she’s an extremely credible witness, she knows a lot about what happened. She’s implicated Turkish organizations operating in the U.S. with both overt and covert operations.

[Q: Which ones?]

ATC, ATAA, TACO (Ed: TACA)…She talked about how she was recruited to join these operations, she talked about the fact that the Inspector General’s report exonerated her, she talked about the circumstances around her dismissal, she talked about the fact that these the fact that these Turkish American operations were, she said in her words ‘all receiving support from the Turkish government’.

She talks about one of the main lobby issues is suppressing U.S. media coverage of the Armenian Genocide and preventing the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress from passing. She said very very strongly that is one of their major issues.

She also attested there is no credible opposition to the historical facts of the Armenian genocide, that it’s only coming from Turkey.

[Ed note: Edmonds was raised in Turkey, though is a U.S. citizen. Krikorian is of Armenian dissent. Schmidt is neither, but she is co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Caucus.]

Did not have very flattering things to say about former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. … Actually, I stopped taking notes because I was [s]o fascinated by what she was saying. … She talked about the Rand Corp., Brewster-Jennings, nuclear secrets…

Frankly it’s disappointing that things like this are happening in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Is it a huge surprise? No. Should it be tolerated? Absolutely not. I can’t imagine George Washington and Thomas Jefferson allowing this sort of thing to go on in the Republic that they created. I cannot imagine it.

We’re talking about High Crimes against the United States government. If the Government is aware of these High Crimes and doesn’t prosecute them, I’m not sure what can be said about this.”

***

Update from Brad:

12:24pm PT (3:24pm ET) Apparently the proceedings are now wrapping up. It’s believed that Edmonds and Krikorian and the attorneys will speak to whatever media is outside the NWC. Will cover…

12:56pm (3:56pm ET) Okay, I believe this will be the final update. But it will end with a BANG. Big time…Read to the end…really…

The attorneys and Krikorian and Edmonds all had a media avail after the deposition completed.

Bruce Fein, the attorney for Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) — who began all of this with her complaint at the Ohio Election Commission against David Krikorian, claiming he made “false statements” by alleging she took “blood money” from Turkish interests to suppress a vote in the U.S. House on the Armenian Genocide resolution — was confronted by a reporter with Armenian TV who asked if it wasn’t the “cornerstone of free speech for candidates to talk about freely about these matters.

Fein became very defensive, said that Krikorian “can say whatever he wants about the Armenian Genocide, but what he’s not allowed to do is state lies. We don’t want to close anybody’s mouth when it comes to taking about the Armenian Genocide…What we’re trying to do is promote freedom of speech. Some versions are trying to harass individuals who are trying to dispute history.”

The reporter, Elizabeth Chouldjian, freelancing coverage today for Armenian Horizons TV, is also with Armenian National Committee of America, and she continue to press her points, and asked Fein if he didn’t have a conflict of interest in this case. She had earlier told me that Fein was a Board member of the Turkish Coalition of America, Turkish American Legal Defense Fund and legal counsel for Assembly of Turkish American Associations. She wondered if it was appropriate for Fein to represent Schmidt, since he himself could be called to testify, as a witness on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.

Chouldjian had told me that he’s been flying around the country, essentially trying to deny that the genocide ever occurred, has sued the state of Massachusetts to put Armenian genocide “denialist” material in text books, is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for putting out an article last year called “State of Denial” which, she says, focused on Turkish interests trying to block Armenian Genocide resolution from being passed.

Fein left very quickly thereafter, so I didn’t get a chance to ask him if he, himself, recognized what he called, several times, “the Armenian genocide”.

Chouldjian later told Edmonds of Fein’s connections to those organizations, several of whom came up in the deposition apparently. Edmonds had no idea Fein was allied with those organizations.

Michael Kohn, Edmonds attorney, working on behalf of the National Whistleblower Center made his statement to say he’s “glad her testimony has finally count out…It’s been many years in the making. We’re delighted that the Justice Department did not intervene and allowed the testimony to go forward.” He said it was “a breath of fresh air from the previous administration.” He didn’t “think it would have happened with the previous administration.”

He was not sure when the transcript of the session would be released. New information today, he said, including naming persons by name and with a great deal of specifics. NWC would review the testimony and disseminate publicly as soon as possible.

Krikorian stated: “We came here to get the sworn testimony of a very very credible witness in defense against a current Congresswoman. And then, beyond that, doing what is right for the country, which is why I’m running. I plan to win this case, and I plan to win this election,” he said.

He said their [sic] is an Ohio Election Commission preliminary meeting on Aug. 13th, and a hearing on Sept 3rd, and that he would look at releasing both video and transcript thereafter.

Edmonds, however, seemed to suggest that the video tape, at least, might be released in full sooner.

Here comes a bombshell or two…

At the venue, Edmonds said that she named names and details on all of the Congress members noted on her “State Secrets Gallery” page. And then some.

She said she told them about “Mr. [Marc] Grossman and Brewster Jennings…And the real story about them, not the crap they got from the media.”

I was unable to follow up that statement with a question, before she got into a cab, but was able to track her down on her cell thereafter.

First, I asked if she specified whether the sitting bi-sexual, married Congresswoman who had been taped sleeping with a woman, without knowing, and then bribed by Turkish interests with the tape, to vote against the Armenian Genocide resolution had been a Democrat or a Republican. She said she is a Democrat, and that she testified to that during her deposition. (See Krikorian’s long statement above for more details on that woman.)

Second, I asked about the the “real” story on Brewster Jennings, as opposed to the “crap…from the media” as she mentioned at the venue.

“Basically,” she said, “I told them how [third-ranking State Dept. official in the Bush Admin and former Ambassador to Turkey] Marc Grossman disclosed” that Brewster Jennings was a CIA front company] to the target of an FBI investigation. “And it was under oath and that some some lives may have been lost.”

“Novak has nothing to do with it. Wilson has nothing to do with it. Valerie Plame has nothing to do with it. The whole operation has to do with something totally different and it had to do with the American Turkish Council and the Turkish clients who were about to hire Brewster Jennings as an analyst … and Grossman found out about it, and tipped off his diplomatic contact who was a target of the FBI counter-intelligence, and that person notified the ISI [Pakistani intelligence agency], etc.”

She says that Brewster Jenning was then “dismantled as soon as the FBI notified the CIA” after which “FBI requested CIA to do a damage assessment, to see if lives would be lost.”

All of this, she re-iterated was “long before, three years before” Novak outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in his newspaper column.

Brewster Jennings was “absolutely” dismantled in August of 2001.

“Grossman and [Richard] Armitage, they are the only two people involved. Later on Cheney and his people may have used it, but it had nothing to do with those other things, [Brewster Jennings] was completely destroyed and gone by the summer of 2001.”

Bombshell enough for ya? Let’s see if anyone in the corporate media bothers to agree, and/or pick up on this — now that it’s officially “on the record” and, as Edmonds took pains to point out: under oath!

Here endeth today’s live-blogging session. We hope to be hitting the road this afternoon (we were supposed to go on “vacation” today, but have had to put things off for this), so if anyone feels like tipping us some gas money, to make up for three hours sleep and today’s marathon coverage, we’d much appreciate it!

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